(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is preparing to allow customers to buy many of its products, including iPads, Macs and AirPods, over monthly installments via its Apple Card credit card.The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is planning to roll out the service in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the plan.

Minneapolis and California take steps against dangerous tactics
Momentum continues but demonstrations grow more peaceful
Nationwide protests hurtled toward a second weekend following the police killing of George Floyd, as several cities and states took steps to reform controversial policing tactics.
In Minneapolis, where Floyd died last Monday after a white officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints by police and to require officers to try to stop any other officers they see using improper force.

Film and television productions in California will soon be able to send their people back to work, several months after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered operations across the country and internationally.

A Californian homeowner is suing a prospective buyer for attempting to pay for 30% of the property using a “worthless” cryptocurrency.
After attempting to sell her home, California-based psychologist Mary Shea is suing buyer, Mike Cherwenka, for attempting to pay for 30% of the property’s value in the form of a “worthless” crypto asset called ‘Troptions.Gold.’ The dispute has left her unable to sell the home as Cherwenka’s company still claims an interest in it.
Shea accuses Cherwenka and his company Best Buy Homes of violating securities and state racketeering laws by misleading herself and other members of the public as to the nature of the Troption virtual currency.
Her complaint states:
“Cherwenka and Best Buy defrauded Shea by executing a scheme whereby they would offer to purchase her property for cash, and then, as part of the scheme, introduce confusing and false statements into the real estate contract that would, in their view, give them license to 'pay' for the property using worthless Troptions.Gold”
Five magic beans for your house
After negotiating a sale price of $125,000, Shea states that Cherwenka presented the contract with clauses relating to a Troptions payment, with no further elaboration made.
The plaintiff states that she was assured by her real estate broker than an independent attorney would confirm the funds prior to the deal’s closure, however she later discovered that the closing attorney was associated with Cherwenka.
On the closing date in March, Cherwenka threatened to sue Shea when she expressed apprehension after being instructed to open a digital wallet to accept the Troptions.

An officer mistakenly believed Sean Monterrosa had a gun, but it was a hammer in his pocketPolice in northern California fatally shot an unarmed 22-year-old who was on his knees with his hands up outside a Walgreens store while responding to a call of alleged looting, officials said.An officer in the city of Vallejo was inside his car when he shot Sean Monterrosa on Monday night amid local and national protests against police brutality.

Businesses damaged in protests over the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was asphyxiated in police custody in Minneapolis, should be reimbursed for their losses, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said on Thursday.

Some of the rise expected as counties accelerate plans to reopen and warm weather draws people to beaches and parks, expert saysThe number of coronavirus cases in California is on the rise after weeks of optimism that infections had slowed, raising fears that plans to reopen counties, along with mass protests against police brutality, could accelerate transmission of the virus. According to numbers from Johns Hopkins University, which has been tracking coronavirus cases and deaths, California is one of 20 states that have seen an uptick in cases in the past five days. Just this week, daily cases of Covid-19 hit a new high across the state, topping 3,000 new daily confirmed cases for the second time in a week and contributing to the 115,000 cases and more than 4,300 deaths the state has reported since the pandemic began. California has been held up as a model for its response to the coronavirus, locking down earlier, and being slower to lift shelter-in-place orders compared to other states.But recent weeks have seen counties push back on the orders, in some cases reopening sections of the economy in defiance of orders from Gavin Newsom, California’s governor.David Eisenman, the director of the Center for Public Health and Disasters at UCLA, said some of the rise was to be expected as counties accelerate plans to reopen and warm weather draws Californians to beaches and parks.

A GRANDMOTHER is in an induced coma and may lose her eye after being hit with a “projectile” during a George Floyd protest, her family claim. Leslie Furcron, 59, sustained horrific injuries when she was peacefully protesting in California on Saturday when officers allegedly opened fire in close range, shooting her in the head.

The women survived abuse, war and cancer, and are now held in California prisons with rising Covid-19 outbreaks
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is facing mounting pressure, including from a top state official, to grant clemency to dozens of elderly and vulnerable women who are serving long sentences in prison and are at high risk of death from coronavirus.

Photographer Richard Grant took the snap on Sunday during demonstrations in Long Beach, California, after the death of George Floyd - though people have raised concerns it's not entirely clear what the officer was pointing the weapon at

Composer for Unforgiven and The Bridges of Madison County, who Eastwood taught to swim in the army, died in California
Lennie Niehaus, who as Clint Eastwood’s favoured composer created the scores to Unforgiven and 12 more of his films, has died aged 90.
He died at his daughter’s California home under hospice care, the family announced.

Fires burned near the White House, stores were looted in New York City and Southern California, and a tanker truck drove into marchers in Minneapolis as the United States struggled to contain chaotic protests over race and policing.

Robert O’Brien: ‘There are some bad cops that are racist’
Mayors impose curfews, governors call in national guard amid violence
Dispatch from Minneapolis: the night the city cracked down on protests
Washington: unrest comes to the White House
As protests rage, Trump comments inflame tensions
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4.18pm BST
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has appeared on ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and opened by urging unity in the United States.

Many black nature-lovers have to employ defense mechanisms – lest a situation turn sticky and they have to answer questions from a suspecting police officer
It was 2011 when Rue Mapp was followed by a white woman in an Oakland, California, park, while out on a national campaign to get local families connected with nature.

A divided Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal by a California church that challenged state limits on attendance at worship services that have been imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Protests rock cities across US as anger over killing spreads
Atlanta police chief: ‘black lives being diminished’
Officer in George Floyd killing charged with murder
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2.34pm BST
There was damage and looting at the college football hall of fame last night.

A divided Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, on Friday rejected a request from a church in California to block limitations on the number of people who could attend religious services during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chief Justice John Roberts joins liberals as court splits 5-4
Church argued limits on attendance violated first amendment
A divided supreme court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal by a California church that challenged state limits on attendance at services that have been imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Related: Top Senate Republican urges older conservative judges to retire Continue reading...

California prison officials said Friday that they suspended multiple employees who made racist jokes about the death of an unarmed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, a disclosure that came amid protests across the state and nation.

Coronavirus cases are surging in a scorching hot desert region straddling south California and a city near Mexico's Tijuana, leading to saturated hospitals, a cross-border overspill of patients and airlifts from rural US clinics.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission ordered crypto firm BitClave to return $25.5 million to investors.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered cryptocurrency firm BitClave to return $25.5 million to investors.
In a March 28 announcement, the SEC announced charges against the California-based cryptocurrency startup.

A coronavirus testing project in San Francisco has provided yet another example of how COVID-19 is overwhelmingly affecting people of color.Diane Havlir, the director of the HIV/AIDS division at the University of California, San Francisco, noticed early in the pandemic that young Latino men were arriving at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with coronavirus symptoms more often than any other demographic.

Malfunction caused rocket to shut down about five seconds after ignition
The first launch demonstration of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket ended in failure this week.
The California-based company aims to place small satellites into space using LauncherOne, which is carried under the wing of a converted 747 jumbo-jet aircraft.

As the novel coronavirus tore through Italy and then New York in March, California, anticipating a deadly surge in cases, ordered hospitals to shut down routine procedures and called in thousands of health care workers to help patients.

Less than four months after a 57-year-old California woman died and was later found to be the country's first COVID-19 fatality, the coronavirus US death toll topped 100,000 people on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally.

A group of 23 US states led by California, the District of Columbia and four major cities are filing suit Wednesday to challenge a Trump administration decision to weaken Obama administration fuel efficiency standards.

Bitcoin price manipulation, money laundering and racketeering are just some of the complaints against BitMEX, but is there any merit to them?
BitMEX, one of the most popular derivatives exchanges in the cryptocurrency market, has come under fire with accusations of being purposefully designed to facilitate “a myriad of illegal activities." The accusations were made in a lawsuit filed by BMA LLC in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on May 16.
In the lawsuit, both HDR Global Trading — BitMEX’s parent company — and Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed — the exchange’s top executives —— stand accused of either engaging in or facilitating multiple criminal activities including racketeering, money laundering, wire fraud and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Both BitMEX and the plaintiff, BMA LLC, have been or are currently involved in other noticeable lawsuits in the cryptocurrency space.

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) is said to cut prices of its electric vehicles by as much as 6% in North America in response to the downturn in auto demand in the area amid the lockdown orders tied to the coronavirus pandemic.According to Reuters, Tesla lowered prices for the Models S, 3, and X in North America as its Fremont factory in California recently resumed production.

Tesla Inc said on Wednesday it will cut prices of its electric vehicles in North America as the firm ramps up car production at its Fremont, California, factory after the easing of coronavirus lockdowns.

Tesla Inc said on Wednesday it will cut prices of its electric vehicles in North America as the firm ramps up car production at its Fremont, California, factory after the easing of coronavirus lockdowns.

Cinematographer Gregory St Johns accused of groping and kissing crew, then having them fired if they objected
The state of California is suing CBS, Disney and producers of the long-running series Criminal Minds, alleging that the show’s cinematographer engaged in rampant sexual misconduct against crew members for years.
The suit filed in Los Angeles superior court on Tuesday by California employment authorities says the show’s production team knew of and condoned the behaviour of cinematographer Gregory St Johns throughout the 14 years he spent on Criminal Minds and fired more than a dozen men who resisted his unwanted groping and sexual harassment.

California, the most populous US state, took another step on Tuesday toward ending sweeping lockdowns imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic, allowing barber shops and hair salons in most counties to operate for the first time in more than two months.

The Justice Department has notified lawyers for Senators Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, Dianne Feinstein of California and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma that it will not charge the lawmakers with insider trading for stock sales they or their family members made shortly after some had attended non-public intelligence briefings about the coronavirus crisis earlier this year.

Barbershops and hair salons can re-open with some changes to their operations in parts of California where public health officials call it safe, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday, as the most populous US state continued to ease its coronavirus-related restrictions.

Jane Gottlieb's turned her boring sea-view home in Santa Barbara, California into a work of art but says 'nobody in the neighbourhood really likes it because they all have these beige Mediterranean houses'